Load-corner protector and binderstrap support



July 28, 1942- E. c. PAGEL 2,290,990

LOAD-CORNER PROTECTOR AND BINDER-STRAP SUPPORT Filed Dec. 2, 1940 a 221M6 2 C agez Patented July 28, 1942 Ernest C. PageLChicago, Ill., assignor;t Signode Steel Strapping Company, Chicago, Ill.,a corporation of Delaware Application December 2, 1940, Serial No. 368,189

-(c1. Leos-60) Claims.

Myinvention relates to transportation loads.

More particularly it relates to a load-corner protector and binder-strap supportadapted for use in the preparation of loads for safe transportation in railway cars.

The principal object of the invention is to provide a corner which will protect the corners of the load units against damage from the tension of the load-unit-en'circling binder straps and from blows encountered during transit and which will retain the binder straps securely in place relative to each other and to the load. I

Another object is to provide a corner which, in addition to the foregoing results, will facilitate the stowing of the load and its preparation for removal from the car.

Other objects and advantages will be hereinafter explained.

My improved corners are particularly adapted for use in the transportation of skidded sheet metal, and will be so shown and described, but obviously may be used with loads of other commodities.

In the drawing:

Fig. 1 is a perspective of a corner showing in dotted lines how it is applied to a binder strap and in full lines its normal relation to the strap after complete application;

Fig. 2 is a perspective sectional view of a box car showing therein atypical load unit, 'including the improved corner protectors;

Fig. 3 is a top plan of the end of a car interior showing one stage of a typical loadingopera' tion;

Fig. 4 is a similar view with the load unit completed; and

Fig. 5 is a perspective of a temporary spacer which may be used in the preparation of a load unit to keep the constituents thereof properly initially spaced from the car end wall.

Referring first to Fig. 1, the improved corner comprises a member having two sides Hi and H, joined together at an angle corresponding to the angle of the vertical corner of the load unit it is to fit, and a top l2 adapted slightly to overlap and rest upon the top side of the load unit at a corner thereof. One sidee. g., the side l0is provided with a pair of aligned and confronting binder holding tongues l3 and M for each horizontal binder strap with which the load unit is to be encircled. The illustrated corner is for the accommodation of two binder straps and consequently two pairs or sets of tongues are shown. The upper tongue 13 is joined to the side II! by a base l5 which is disposed diagonally to the cominserted, as will presently appear.

mon axis of the two tongues of a pair. Inclination of tongue base l5 at an angle of approximately 45 to the axis of the tongues has been found to give satisfactory results. The lower tongue I4 is joined to side Ill by a base l6, which is disposed substantially perpendicularly to the common axis of the tongue pair. Tongue bases I5 and I6 are deep enough to permit the two tongues of a pair to lie substantially parallel to the plane of the corner side It at a distance sufficient to permit a binder strap ll of the desired thickness to be slipped and fairly tightly retained therebehind. The tips l8 and i9, respectively, of a tongue pair are spaced apart slightly more than the thickness of the binder strap and they are formed 'at a common anglesuch as 45- to the axis of the tongues so as to leave therebetween a parallel sided diagonal slot or gap 2!) through which a binder strap can be Preferably upper tongue I3 is made somewhat longer than lower tongue M and whereas the length of the upper tongue may be about equal to the width of the binder strap, it is found to be better to make the extreme length of the lower tongue less than the width of the strap.

The corner member and its tongues may be formed from a single piece of sheet metal. The tongues are, by shearing and bending operations, struck from the sheet which, either before or after the formation of the tongues, is bent to provide the desired angleusually a right anglebetween the sides 10 and H and to provide the top l2. The length and other dimensions of the corner member may be varied as different conditions seem to dictate and the vertical space between the tongue pairs will depend upon the spacing desired for the horizontal binder bands.

A typical example of the application of my improved corners will now be described, referring initially to Fig. 3. In this figure the load unit for one end of the car consists of fifteen subunits arranged in five transverse rows or tiers of three sub funits each Each subunit, consisting of a skidded st: .1: of sheet steel, may be assumed to be such as illustrated and described in L, J. Scales Patent No. 1,920,917 granted August 1, 1933. At the commencement of the loading operation, a bulkheadtfi set near the end 2% of the car, being spaced therefrom by suitable spacer blocks 37 which may be of the construction shown in Fig. Each block 2? consists of a rectangular piece of wood separated into two complementary wedge-shaped sections by a diagonal cut 2'5. By making the diagonal contacting faces of the two block sections smooth, these spacing blocks may be readily removed after all of the constituents of the load unit are in place. Usually-at least when the sub-units are skidded stacks of sheet steel, the load constituents are individually so heavy that they are moved into the car and approximately positioned by power driven lift trucks. Then the sub-units of the first row to go into the car are moved tightly against the bulkhead and the sub-units of subsequent rows are moved tightly against those of preceding rows by pushing them with the truck. The result is that the bulkhead and the spacer blocks are tightly wedged between the rear wall of the car and the inner row of sub-units. By making the spacer blocks of two complementary wedge-shaped sections,- as shown in Fig. 5, the sections may be easily separated by a mawl or hammer and then individually removed. A bulkhead extending substantially clear across the car from side to side facilitates the proper positioning of sub-units of the first row to be stowed because it provides an aligner against which the sub-units may be pushed without tilting; and it retains them in proper position during the stowing of subsequent sub-units.

After all of the constituents of one load unit have been stowed into the end of the car-care being taken to leave spaces between those forming the lateral outside longitudinal rows and the side walls 28 of the car, and sufficient clearance being left at the doorway 29 as shown in Fig. 3, the spacer blocks 21 and bulkhead 25 are removed. Now the unit is assembled and stowed with clearance between it and the end and side walls of the car suflicient to enable the horizontal unitbinder bands to be easily applied thereabout. Usually it will be the better practice to have these binder bands cut to a length slightly in excess of that required completely to encircle the load unit. These cut-to-length bands may be fitted with corners and applied to the load units in various ways, but a satisfactory method will now be described.

First the approximate longitudinal center of a band I! is located and from it the location of the two inside or far corners 30 and 3| are located, and there the binder is bent with two right angle bends approximately to fit the inside load unit corners. Ordinarily, these initial bends are made in the band before it is moved into the end of the car. After the two bends for the inside corners of the load unit are thus provided, the two inside corner members are applied to the binder at these bends. The corners may be easily applied by tilting them so that the binder is about at an angle of 45 to the common axis of the tongues as indicated by the dot-dash lines of Fig. 1. With the corner member at this angle to the binder, the edge of the binder is inserted into the slot or gap 20 between the two tongue tips 18 and i9 and the corner member is forced downwardlyor the corner member is pushed upwardlyuntil the binder is fully seated against the diagonal base of the upper tongue l3 as shown by the dot-dash lines of Fig. 1. In this condition the lower edge of the binder lies above the diagonal edge I9 of the lower tongue tip and by a slight twisting movement may be forced inwardly or behind the plane of the tongues. Then the corner memberor the binder-is tilted so that it lies substantially perpendicular to the common axis of the tongues and the binder is slid downwardly behind the lower tongue I4 into the position shown by the full lines of Fig. 1.

This procedure is repeated for each binder with both of the inside corner members. Now with the two inside corner members hanging down from the two binders, the corner members, with the free ends of the binder trailing, are carried into the end of the car and slipped down over the inside corners of the load unit until the top members of the corner units rest upon the top of the load unit. Next the two ends of the bands forward of the rear corners are trained along the corresponding sides of the load unit until the forward corners are reached and then right angled bends are made in the binders at the approximate location of the outer or doorway corners of the load unit. At these bends for the outer or front corners of the load unit, two additional corner members are applied in precisely the same manner as was used for the placement of the corner members for the inner or rear corners of the load units. When the corner members for the front corners of a load unit are suspended from the binders, they are slid down around the front corners of the load unit until their top plates rest upon the load unit. Finally, the two free ends of each binder are brought together in front of the load unit at the doorway end, tension is applied theretopreferably by means of a suitable tensioning tool--and after the proper tension has been attained, the overlapping ends of the binders are united and sealed together in a suitable joint 35 to make the encircling loop permanent.

If the units are to be shipped according to the so-called full floating load method, where they are unsecured to the car and left free to move under the shocks and jolts of switching and travel, each appears as shown in Fig. 2. Each of the four corners of each unit is protected against injuryeither from the tensioned unit binders, or from contact with the other objects-- by the stiff metal corner members. The binder bands are retained in place around the load units and in proper spaced relation even though they may become somewhat loose, because they are prevented from being displaced by the retaining ton ues of the corner members.

The relative length of the tongues of a pairthe length at the extreme point of the lower one being less than strap width-together with the diagonal disposition of the inner confronting edges of the tongues relative to the common axis of the tongues serves to insure that as long as a strap is substantially perpendicular to the tongue axes (i. e., substantially in its normal condition, which is horizontally about the load unit) some part of both tongues is in front of it. Thus the binder cannot slip through the gap between the confronting top edges of a tongue pair unless and until there is such a relative tilting of the strap and corner member that the strap is parallel to the gap. But when the corner members are in place and the binder strap is even fairly taut about the unit such a degree of tilting is prevented. Such an amount of relative tilt can only occur when the strap is free, such as before it is tensioned in the loading operation, or after it has been cut for unloading at destination. When unloading is to occur the sub-units are made readily individually accessible by merely cutting the binders and removing the corner members by reversing the procedure of their application.

Of course, it will be understood that sub-units of skidded stacks of sheet metal and shipment by the full floating load method are merely illustrative of the commodities and methods of shipment for which the corners are applicable.

Having thus illustrated and explained the nature and a typical application of my invention, what I claim and desire to secure by United States Letters Patent is as follows:

1. A load-corner protector and binder-strap support comprising a metallic corner member formed to fit about a vertical comer and over a part of the top of a load, said member having a pair of vertically aligned confronting spaced apart tongues lying parallel to a side of said member, the space separating the tips of the tongues being less than the width of the binder strap, the base of one tongue being diagonally related to the axis of the tongues, and the base of the other tongue being perpendicular to the axis of the tongues.

2. A load-corner protector and binder-strap support comprising a single piece of sheet metal bent to fit about the vertical sides of a corner and over a part of the top of the load, and having a pair of vertically aligned spaced tongues struck from a side of the sheet, said tongues lying parallel to the plane of the side from which they are struck, and having their unattached tips spaced apart less than the width of the strap, the base of the lower tongue whereby it is joined to the sheet lying substantially perpendicular to the axis of the tongues, and the base of the upper tongue whereby it is joined to the sheet lying diagonal to the axis of the tongues.

3. A load-corner protector and binder-strap support comprising a single piece of metal bent to fit about the vertical sides of a corner and over a part of the top of the load, said corner member having struck from one vertical side as many pairs of aligned tongues as the maximum number of binder-straps desired, each pair of tongues being outwardly spaced from the side of the corner member a distance slightly greater than the thickness of the strap and having their tips separated by a gap which lies diagonally to the common axis of the tongue pair and is narrower than the width of the strap, the lower tongue of a pair having a base which is substantially perpendicular to the tongue axis for joining it to the side of the corner member and the upper tongue of a pair having a base which is diagonally related to the tongue axis for joining it to the side of the corner member.

4. A load-corner protector and binder-strap support comprising a metallic corner member formed to fit about a vertical corner of a load, said member having a pair of vertically aligned confronting spaced apart tongues lying parallel to a side of said member, the space separating the tips of the tongues being less than the width of the binder strap, the base of one tongue being diagonally related to the axis of the tongues, and the base of the other tongue being perpendicular to the axis of the tongues.

5. A load-corner protector and binder-strap support comprising a metallic corner member formed to fit about a corner'of a load, said member having a pair of aligned confronting spaced apart tongues lying parallel to a side of said member, the free ends of the tongues being spaced apart a distance lessthan the width of the binderstrap, these ends being diagonally related to the axis of the tongues, the base of one tongue being substantially parallel to the free ends, and the base of the other tongue being substantially perpendicular to the axis of the tongues.

ERNEST C. PAGEL. 

